sarasvati | Reading

1. Had a long day today with a lot of driving, but it was a good day. I made three store visits and they were all pleasant and not being made because of some stressfull issues that had to be addressed or anything like that. More of this, please.

2. While I was out, I had a bunch of delicious foods. The first store I went to has a little restaurant that sells freshly made sushi hand rolls and I got those for lunch, including their wagyu beef one, which is so good. Then when I went to the next store, there was a shop in the same shopping center that has mochi donuts and lattes and I got a sakura matcha latte and black sesame mochi donuts.

3. Carla went out shopping today and actually stopped at a different branch of the same mochi donut store and brought home donuts, so I can have more of them for dessert and for breakfast tomorrow!

4. This morning as I was about to leave for work I spotted this silly guy in the laundry.

torachan

We ended up doing another after work trip last night. It was very hot during the day, but had cooled off nicely by the time we got there (though still a bit muggy).

( Read more... )

torachan

1. I took one car to the car wash yesterday and the other today and now they both look much better. I will be very glad when they are finally done with the huge construction at the end of our street (should be done by this fall) because it really kicks up a lot of dust. (Even the car I got washed yesterday already has a visible layer of dust coating it by today.)

2. Since I got these new shoes several months back I have noticed them being really squeaky, especially on certain types of flooring. They're so squeaky that I often felt self-conscious about them. After trying a few things, I noticed that the insoles I have for them are slightly too large, even though they are the correct size range for the shoes, and it seems like the part of the insoles in the toe area are where the worst of the squeaking is coming from. So I ordered one size smaller of insoles and have been wearing those for the past week and the squeaking is almost totally gone! They still make a little noise once in a while, but it's like 99.9% reduced. The restroom at work was one of the worst offenders, so the first time I was able to test them in there and they weren't squeaking up a storm, I knew they'd be okay everywhere.

3. We went down to Disneyland tonight for dinner. It's been hot during the day this week but was much nicer by the time we got down there (and the sun was going down by then).

4. I finished another puzzle this morning. This is my first time doing a puzzle that wasn't square, so that was an interesting twist. I usually do the edges of a puzzle first, but I couldn't do that with this one because most of the edge pieces were tiny and didn't even interlock with each other, just with the next layer of pieces in from them.

5. Gemma looks very disturbed to realize that I've seen her.

torachan

1. I had a dentist appointment this morning and got that new cavity taken care of. Thankfully it was a small one and didn't take them long to fix. (Also because it was just a small one, with my insurance it was only $29! The cleaning was way more than that!)

2. Look at that blep!

torachan

1. I did indeed have a WFH day today and it was pretty chill. Got everything on my to-do list done and had two good web interviews.

2. I'm really enjoying Mario Kart World. And just ten more days until the new Donkey Kong game, which looks like it will be amazing!

3. Molly is demonstrating the proper way to help at the computer.

torachan

1. We walked down to our favorite deli this morning to pick up sandwiches for lunch. The UV index was pretty high today so even though we tried to stick to the shade as much as possible, it was still exhausting being out in that level of sun, but the temperature was nice and there was a good breeze every now and then and it was a very nice walk overall.

2. Back to work tomorrow. :( Thinking of maybe making it a WFH day, though. So far the only meeting-like things I have are two web interviews, so that can be done from home, and I've got a lot of desk work and email to catch up on from the three-day weekend. So if no one comes up with anything urgent that needs me in person I think I'll stay home.

3. Tuxie is so handsome!

crafty_packrat

Bacon-cheese wheel, almond croissant, apricots (!!), red plums, strawberries, yellow raspberries, black raspberries, sour cherries (pie!), donut nectarines, strawberry lemonade, a gallon of herbal lemonade, brown sugar kettle corn, caramel kettle corn.

Next week I will buy red sweet cherries (for ketchup) and peaches (for salsa), and actually enter my canning in the county's agricultural fair this year.

Fun fact, red currants used to be illegal to plant in the United States -- they are the second host for white pine blister rust disease, and that is a threat to the lumber industry as white pine is very susceptible to it. This is why purple candy in the USA is grape-flavored, while in Europe purple candy is currant-flavored; we didn't *have* currants (or gooseberries) legally for almost 100 years.

lea_hazel

BTW, since I posted about this to Tumblr, too, Turncoat Chronicle is 34% off on Steam until July 10th.

Overall reviews on Steam are positive! It's 180K thousand interactive novel where you play the heir to a usurper king, confronted with the grown heir of your father's old enemies. Choose between allying with the rightful heir (thus turning on your father), or forming a false friendship, then betraying them to your father. Or stab them both in the back and crown yourself.

In between, there's an aloof spymaster, a serene royal consort, a bratty younger brother, and, of course, the loyal guard who, with just a little bit of polish, can be passed off as a false-real-heir.

Current Mood: curious

torachan

1. We had such a nice time at Disneyland this morning. Too sunny but otherwise lovely weather and so few crowds!

2. We stopped at the farmers market on the way home and got some stuff from our usual vendors (the fruit leather guy definitely knows me now) but there was also a new vendor, a vegan Jewish deli that had all sorts of interesting stuff. Carla got a jar of some sort of pickle relish and I got some pastries including a stone fruit "cheese" danish (idk what the cheese was but everything was vegan so it wasn't actually dairy) that was super good and a pistachio cardamom apricot hamantaschen, which I haven't tried yet but that flavor combo is a favorite so I have high hopes.

3. I love that feeling on the middle day of a three day weekend when you realize that you don't have work tomorrow. That keeps happening throughout the day and it's a pleasant surprise every time. Definitely looking forward to one more day of rest.

4. Jasper's definitely got the relaxing down.

torachan

We were expecting it to be crowded today because of the holiday weekend but it was actually one of the least crowded days we've ever experienced at the parks.

( Read more... )

torachan

1. I had a pretty relaxing day today. Aside from walking up to the store this morning for pie crust and salad stuff, I did not go anywhere and just chilled at home.

2. I got some of the rhubarb I chopped up and froze a few weeks ago out of the freezer and made another pie. There's still four bags (I didn't divide it that way on purpose but it turns out two bags is exactly enough for one pie).

3. Ollie is such a cutie pie.

torachan

Currently Reading
Murder at the Patel Motel
39%. This is not actually a book, so much as an audio drama. It's an Audible Original and comes free with membership, so I decided to try it out. Turns out the author and voice of the main character is the guy who played Jack's assistant on 30 Rock. I loved him in that! And I'm liking this "book" a lot so far.

Just Happy to Be Here
11%. YA about a South Asian trans girl's experience at a mostly white all girls' high school. It's all right so far.

Sister Outsider
No progress.

Riding the Rails
48%.

Recently Finished
How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee
I felt like this took ages to finish, but it was a good read. Very interesting stuff.

A Terrible Nasty Business
I really want more books in this series.

Sou Iu Ie no Ko no Hanashi vol. 1
New series from Shimura Takako following three characters who were raised in the same new religion (the religion in the story is not any real one, just based on others), marking them as different from the majority of the population, which is not actively religious. I like pretty much everything by Shimura Takako, so I'm curious to see where this goes.

Tsumetakute Yawaraka vol. 5

Hatsukoi no Tsugi vol. 2

torachan

This was another last minute decision. With the lower level keyholders blocked out for summer there's almost always same-day availability, so might as well take advantage of it.

( Read more... )

torachan

1. Three day weekend! I'm looking forward to relaxing and not doing much.

2. I had two interviews today and both of them stood me up, but the good thing is that I was doing them from home, so I hadn't gone out of my way for them and wasn't particularly inconvenienced.

3. We decided to go to Disneyland for dinner. Had a lovely time, though it was a bit more trafficy both going and coming than I would prefer.

4. Suspicious Gemma.

lotesse

Alas that stress also means need for dentist. I think the filling repair my dentist did last month already broke; it might not be the only bit of my dentistry crumbling under the current tension levels. And going to the dentist is so painful and scary :(

torachan

1. Today was kind of a long day but I did get stuff done.

2. Just one more day of work this week and then three day weekend!

3. Finished another puzzle today. This is from the multi-puzzle box of Disney 70th anniversary puzzles. I really love this design, and they've got a fair bit of merch using it, too, but sadly not anything I actually need (and not even much that I particularly want).

4. Chloe loves lying on Carla's bed by the window.

white_aster

Not...dead...yet.

Forget where I was, but here's what I've finished lately.

Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes - I liked this! I liked Dead Silence (great vibes) and HaTEd Ghost Station (because so much of it didn't make sense to me, plotwise). I felt this was also in the "fun creepy vibes" category. The resolution was kind of simple, but hey, solid space horror.
Into the Broken Lands by Tanya Huff - I...am glad I read this. Unsure if I "liked" it, but it was kind of a strange book. Imagine...Murderbot in a fantasy setting, with mages who broke part of the world and left it a reality-challenged wasteland, but not before they left behind a lot of very powerful mage-engineered devices, including some humanoid engineered "weapons". That was the part I liked, because it did have some interesting (though kind of overwrought) things to say about defining personhood, and the "weapon" got much more POV than it usually does (Murderbot notwithstanding). There was also one of the most delicately done and interesting corruption arcs I've ever seen done, and that got it up out of 2-star territory for me, but overall it sat around 3 or 3.5. I felt it touched on things I liked but consistently didn't quite hit the beats square enough to get to 4 stars. It wasn't helped by having a very, very annoying set of characters that I hated having to see so much of.
The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong. I liked this a lot. Cozy, but not too cozy in my view: there was tension and problems and emotions and yes, everything worked out, but that's why I'm over reading cozy anyway, so I felt that was fine.
The Wonder Engine by T. Kingfisher. Solid ending to this duology, though it felt very slow for most of it. The ending was a banger, though, and raised it back up into solid 3.5 star territory for me.

Currently I'm reading Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove, and after a wobble at the start where I was kind of unsure if I was going to like the main AI character, it GRABBED me and I've loved it ever since.

lea_hazel

I thought about doing it before, I don't remember who recommended it to me and when, and I've definitely run into it multiple times in my browsing, but... yesterday I finally sat down and started reading Trash of the Count's Family.

Now, first of all, the very first chapter features a fairly lengthy (PG-13) bath scene of the male lead. Some of the fan websites feature gaggles of straight dudes gently losing their marbles over this (largely positive). As a first impression, it definitely gives the vibe that "this one is for the girls and the gays", and I can understand why the fic fandom for this book is huge.

Second. No one warned me? Clyde Trashcount or whatever his name is? Is a fucking princess. Like, this character is a princess who just happens to be of the male gender but yeah, otherwise, a princess. No, I can't really explain it any better than that.

Third or whatever, cats and dragons, so yeah, those are both good reasons to read a book, for sure. Cats and dragons. Catlike dragons, also.

A minor quibble is that, as far as I can tell, every single character has eyes the exact same shade of gray-black. To the point that I briefly entertained the idea that the hero is the bastard half-brother of the protagonist. But no, this appears to be simply a stylistic art choice.

torachan

Took an unplanned trip down to the parks for dessert last night. We got down there early enough that we could just go in DCA instead and avoid some of the nighttime event clogs in Disneyland, which was nice. DCA was actaully not very crowded at all (except when we were leaving and everyone else was as well).

( Read more... )

torachan

1. I had two web interviews today and unlike the guy yesterday, neither of them stood me up. Two more interviews on Thursday so hopefully they come through, too.

2. I got my hair cut today. Cannot stress enough how great it is to have that next appointment already scheduled and not have to deal with having to make the appointment when my hair is starting to bother me. It's already in the calendar! And to go to someone who knows exactly what to do without me telling them every time!

3. The tri-tip Carla grilled on Sunday has indeed made delicious sandwiches. And we still have a ton left so there will be sandwiches all week.

4. Carla was having a high anxiety day so as a mood booster we went down to Disneyland for dessert tonight. Had a very nice trip.

5. Molly's got her eye on you.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

Sarasvati - Of Art and Knowledge

Did I miss your footprints in the morning dew?

Daily Happiness

2025 Disneyland Trip #49 (7/9/25)

Daily Happiness

Daily Happiness

Daily Happiness

Daily Happiness

Farmer's Market -- 5 July 2025 (Red Currant Day, 17th of Harvest, Year 233)

Steam Summer Sale

Daily Happiness

2025 Disneyland Trip #48 (7/5/25)

Daily Happiness

Weekly Reading

2025 Disneyland Trip #47 (7/3/25)

Daily Happiness

(no subject)

Daily Happiness

What We Weading Wednesday

Trash time

2025 Disneyland Trip #46 (7/1/25)

Daily Happiness

Profile

August 2011

Links

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags